#she is so funny and tragic and i love her so much but i also hate her

[ohwell-itsme]

Oh absolutely, but you see, I never even wanted her to be queer, I don't need it, and I'm fine saying I like pop. The reason I like her is that I believe she's being genuine in all the messiness she lets show. She believes herself to be tortured, to be tragic, to "keep her side of the street clean" despite of, hmm, also admitting to snitching on a guy that pissed her off to FBI in another song on the same album. I love how sometimes she shows self awareness and that she just doesn't care, she will spell out that yeah, this is low, but I am absolutely going to go there. She does so much of the "this is how much I don't care" circus that shows she cares in multiple different contexts. She made an album with a theme of "I wrote it late at night when drunk" and people loved it, so she made it her aspiration to get worse by genuinely spiraling further down to make the next one. She has similar self-esteem, trust, attachment and emotional stability issues as myself at 16, pre-therapy, learning anything or having any sort of support in my life, except she's a whole ass adult who can wipe her tears off with money and millions of people who tell her she's perfect that way and whatever man it currently is must be the problem, so... it's very funny to me, I have endless love for this tragicomedy happening. She has too much fame and money to ever get better, she will only get worse, and I'll be cheering her on.

can i get permission to say something that could potentially get me killed here and would DEFINITELY get me killed on twitter. am i safe with you here

[magesforthedas]

Okay I love my first character, and Lucanis is just 🥹😍 but this character and this romance are giving me LIFE. Also this scene is so funny I cant-

Meet Ethena Laidir, a Lord of Fortune with a quite tragic backstory... who still can almost always look on the bright side of things! Though, she'd rather talk out a conflict, but if you've done something to harm others Maker help you, because she probably won't. Otherwise she's fun-loving and very adventurous, and fully expects to be dead by the end of this venture; but not before she saves a lot of people and has as much fun as possible. Also her love language is flirting with all her friends.

She may have met her match, however, in the handsome Grey Warden on their team.

Davrin is a very serious man who takes his tasks very seriously. A gifted hunter, a dedicated warrior, and a loving father. He also needs to learn to live a little, and accept the fact that he's a father to a very feathery baby.

Ethena's bright and fun energy can open up Davrin's world, giving him hope for a future he couldn't see; and he would have not one, but two beings that love him with their whole heart (Ethena and Assan are quite similar in many ways).

And while Davrin's level-headedness tempers out Ethena's spontaneity, his patience for her antics is really what first set him apart in her eyes... Many people got tired of her over time, and Davrin gives her hope that maybe someone would finally stay.

Ahhhhh I love them 🥰 thank you for entertaining my Veilguard-obsessed brain ❤️

[wigglesdtuff]

[lesbitching]

it’s nowhere near the worst interpretation and i do understand how it could be assumed or even be compelling if you’re very interested in the lords in black but one of my biggest pet peeves is the interpretation that the lords in black are manipulating grace and deliberately driving her to where she ends up the entire play. such a big part of what makes grace work is her role as the driving force in the play, an active agent who’s actions directly lead to all the calamity and tragedy that occurs later through sheer religious guilt, desperation and neuroticism. taking even some of that autonomy away from her makes her significantly less compelling.

[whatdidgabrielsay]

this is sooooo coooool!!!!!! really love how expressive they all are!

hope you don't mind some headcanons

gabriel is an heir of void (my boy IS void itself for how little we see of him in the comic... it'd be super funny if he contributes nothing to the ongoing drama in the next volumes... funny but oh so damn tragic)

kuromaku is a maid of time (he is a cleaner/protector to the core. trying to protect a certain timeline for their session to win is like. very him)

dante is a mage of heart (he ascended without the ascention bed that sounds very heart to me. also he is an example that many follow so. yeah?)

felix is a knight of hope (bc the guy weaponizes happiness and he's trying to do it for others (kinda??? ig????) also he's super important)

varu is a prince of mind (trying to brainwash his people? he would definately do some more mind-fuckery if he so could)

brolly is a page of space (bc he's stuck in a tower and everything feels too claustrophobic yk? also he's like. super important for the plot of the comic. he's also artsy sooooo)

romeo is a rogue of breath (he's a very free guy and i think he tried to give that same freedom to his girls. he failed only because there's only so much you can give before an all-powerful wish-fulfiller's battery dies... he's very charitable overall a true rarity mlp kinnie)

pik is a bard of blood (he hates the outfit soooo much. perhaps he just decides not to ascend cuz. well. is it really worth it if you can do cool stuff without ascending anyway? although being able to fly is cool no matter what...) (also i think he finds it fun to see others beat the living shit out of each other. as long as he's the one on top it's fun)

nicole is a witch of doom (cuz science is just looking at the face of death and saying 'is anyone going to break that' and not waiting for an answer)

emma is a thief of rage (bc life is unfair society is unfair and the only thing you can do is use this rage to reshape the world as it's supposed to be. maybe.)

cleo is a seer of light (c'mon look at her. she's very rose-core)

helen is a sylph of life (in an rpg game she would definately be a cute healer mage idk what to say, i'm sorry. i think she really tries to be helpful to her friends and tries to provide some respite to them cuz. well. life is hard but maybe drinking warm tea with friends will make it better. yk?)

13 Cards clones but it's the Homestuck 💥💥💥

[sharkbatez]

Ursula trying to teach Akko magic, defending her from co-teachers wanting to expel Akko for not being able to do the most basic of spells, skirting her teaching responsibilities to cover for Akko because Ursula's afraid of having another thing taken away from Akko because Akko can't do magic at all because Ursula unknowingly stole her magical ability when they were younger.

I gotta lie down.

[queen0fm0nsterz]

Reading my fave thin man and lady fic. Kicking my feet a lot because tbh. Sometimes a sad man really is just a weird woman's science project in a way that is so homoerotic

[sorthgos]

It's interesting to know that it was special for you. The way the whole scene is so good and flows so naturally between father and son, especially knowing how Daniel is. And yes, that grunt was funny and very relatable, it was also a very Kenji thing to do! Glad it stayed in the show. Small scene, but a very good one.

I'm not going to lie, in the episode "The Drop", I wondered how the two of them had enough nerve to just keep pushing and trying to push each other away without hitting each other, until I remembered that yes, it's because it's a children's show lol. What you said is an interesting curiosity, I told my siblings what you said and they laughed a little. It would be the most natural thing for Darius and Kenji to do in that situation.

But I liked the end result because it sounded a lot like a fight between brothers where one didn't want to hurt the other.

"Batten Down the Hatches" was, without a doubt, one of the best and favorite episodes! I congratulate everyone who worked on it, because it was so good! Not much to say, it's one of the best!

I read your post about it and I can't imagine how amazing it must have been! Would the Nick from the past believe it happened?

About Sayona Santos in the show... Can I say that I loved all of it? As a fan, I can say for everyone that you guys did an amazing job with the character! The dynamic between her and Brooklynn is so good and you can REALLY feel that she poses a real threat to B and the campers, cat-and-mouse is a perfect fit for it!

I cannot say much about the "limp difference" because I saw this scene dubbed, so I didn't get it completely, but you just gave a great insight into Brooklynn, I didn't notice that!

I don't know if this reblog is a good place to ask a question, but I noticed that a lot of sad and tragic situations for Kenji happened at a sunset (breaking up with Brooklynn, seeing his own father die in front of his eyes, seeing B choose to get on the plane with Sayona). I feel like this will happen again (it may sound bad, but I hope it does lol), so is there a symbolic meaning behind it or was it just a coincidence?

The entire crew of this show did an amazing job these two seasons, some of the best JW content in years! Thanks, Nick. Your answers put a lot into perspective and are very curious (in a good way). I hope it wasn't confusing or boring for you or other jurassic fans to read, I'm not good using tumblr 🐢

Hello, Nick! Can you share with us some of your favorite scenes into the writing process of Jurassic World: Chaos Theory? Or even some scenes that didn't end up on the show but you liked it?

Gosh, we wrote these so long ago it's so hard to come up with specifics. For the episodes I wrote, I loved writing the scenes in "Halfway Home" between Daniel and Kenji. I have a relationship in my own life that mirrors (to a certain extent) theirs, so to be able to put all of myself into that episode -- my first as a staff writer on a TV series -- was very special for me. It really allowed me to completely open myself up to working with other writers to intimately. I also get a giggle out of the part where Kenji doesn't have the words to describe Daniel's ultimatum, so he just grunts -- I didn't know if it would make anyone else laugh, but it seemed to, so it stayed! That was pretty fun.

"The Drop" was a bit tougher for me, as it was a pretty pivotal moment between Darius and Kenji. In their scene where they struggle over possession of Brooklynn's phone, I really wanted Darius to rear back to take a swing at Kenji, but for some reason, in a show where people are eaten by dinosaurs, throwing punches (or even implying it) was a no-go, but what ended up in there was still really fun and to the spirit of what I was trying to do.

"Batten Down the Hatches" was sooooo much fun to write as a horror and action fan -- I feel like the team really took what I wrote and ran with it in the best possible way! Seeing that one at SDCC with a group of like 800 fans was something I will never forget. People laughed, gasped, shouted at the screen -- it was just such a cool moment for me.

But getting to introduce Soyona Santos was also such a special thing for me. As I've said in the past, getting to write for Dichen Lachman was such a fanboy moment for me, I'm so glad I got to reintroduce her to the world and help usher in a more three dimensional version of the character than there was time for in Dominion. I love the cat-and-mouse vibe of their conversation. There's also the bit that I'm not sure many picked up on where Santos is the one who uses the term, "limb difference" for the first time in the series. Our consultants had taught me that phrase, and I thought it was an interesting choice for Santos to introduce it to Brooklynn. The thinking was somewhere along the lines of, in her quest to get deeper into the trafficking of dinos, she probably didn't have a ton of time to look into how she was really feeling about losing her arm, let alone find anyone else who'd introduce that phrase to her. So when Santos uses it, there's a split second where Brooklynn kinda connects with it. I think it shows that Santos isn't just a mustache-twirly type of villain. She's intelligent, she's hip to how language has evolved, and she might even be a good person in another life. There was a moment where it was called into question whether or not Santos would use the phrase, so I'm especially glad we got to keep it in there.

And don't even get me started on the episodes my amazing colleagues wrote for the rest of the series. They all did such an incredible job, I don't even have enough words to express how awesome their episodes turned out, not to mention how awesome all of the rest of the crew did in bringing the show to life!!

[amatres]

ah fuck it, i can't deny myself the love of the idea of layla ballet dancing in an au

[perenlop]

well i finished renegade. i sure was renegading all over the place

[longagoitwastuesday]

Do you have favorite actors for the various roles in "Cyrano de Bergerac"? I would love to hear your thoughts!

I do! I actually rambled a lot about this while I was watching the different productions I could get my hands on (I tagged it "Cyrano de Bergerac" and "I talk too much").

My favorite productions are the one with José Ferrer and the one with Benoit Solès, and those actors make the best Cyranos in my opinion. Though that's probably something in part beyond the actors' choice, their dynamic with their respective Roxane and Christian are the best ones, I think, and I find how Cyrano moves around these two particular characters at the core of a good Cyrano characterisation.

José Ferrer's use of his voice, which is arguably Cyrano's true most characteristic feature, is unmatched imo (although McAvoy does a very good job with this too), and he manauvers very well several of the different aspects of the character, such as his playfulness, his shittiness and longing. By the end of the play you believe he is the most beautiful man on Earth. Cyrano, however, is a bit pathetic (not just in a "pathos" way), and I'd say Ferrer gives off an air full of dignity very fitting of many scenes, but that eats almost entirely this aspect of Cyrano; Benoit Solès manages this very well, while also playing well with some of the other ones, such as the playfulness, the longing, the pain and the despair. Both Ferrer and Solès are hilarious, tender, a bit shitty, vulnerable, playful and sad. Albeit neither of them portrays 100% what Cyrano is, I think both come pretty close in slightly different flavours, and by the end of the play one ends up being terribly fond of them.

My favourite Roxane is Clara Huet in the production with Benoit Solès, but Mala Powers in the 1950 film is a close second. I think they portray wonderfully Roxane's spunk, and her mix of honest playful cheerfulness and her haughtiness, her intelligence and wit, and how much like Cyrano she is.

I've not come to love for now any Christian as much as I've loved Ferrer, Solès, Huet and Powers, but again I think the Christians in the 1950 film and the Solès productions are very very good. I love the dynamic they have with their Cyranos, especially the one Christian and Cyrano have in the 1950 film, enhanced positively by the added scenes (they actually work so well in showing their developing as friends, their deep love and care for each other!). I don't want to expand too much on this to avoid spoilers (beyond the already known 'Christian dies' ones I mean), but some things they do with both these Christians are a thing of genius, and both feel vulnerable, kind, ready to fight and truly desperate at times; I like when they do that.

There's an Italian production which has a Cyrano I truly enjoy as well, despite how they dumbify him more than I usually like my Christians. His mix of anger and deep pain when he discovers Cyrano's feelings for Roxane were so well made, and his physical presence makes you identify who Christian is even before the play starts.

The Podalydès production has two different Christians. The one in the version on youtube isn't bad, but @ride-a-dromedary likes Éric Ruf a lot. I actually adore him based on the clips and gifs she's posted of him, but I haven't been able to find the version with him online, so I can't know. But he truly seems one of the best. Based on what little I've seen, I love his intense gazes and subtle gestures.

I'm not entirely sold on any Le Bret, De Guiche or Ragueneau yet.

I think the German musical has a decent Ragueneau in vibes, and the 1990 French film does as well. I found his poem made song for what I think is a Spanish production (I'm not sure if it's a fan creation based on the Spanish production), and while I've not been able to find that production online, the song works well in vibes too I think.

The German musical's Le Bret in vibes is very good. He encompasses well his deep love and worry for Cyrano while also being done with his shit. They truly feel like close friends. The 1950 film kind of combines Gaston de Castel-Jaloux and Le Bret into one character, which sadly changes Le Bret's dynamic with Cyrano a bit, but that's a very good Le Bret as well. The one in Solès' production is pretty good too. He has my favourite delivery of the scene in which Le Bret chastises Cyrano for risking his life sending letters.

De Guiche is complicated. I think productions often make him too pathetic and laughable or too bad, so bad it makes the last act kind of not make sense. The 1950 one, the 1990 French one, the Kevin Kline one and the Solès one are all good, but I am not passionate for any of them either.

And basically that's it!

[orestesimp]

EVERY YOU EVERY ME: ISSUE #4

Pairing: Miguel O'Hara x female reader

Summary: Miguel O'Hara saves you from falling off the Chrysler building for a second time, and he's not very happy about it.

Word count: 4,400 words.

Content: Slow burn so slow we're getting a reverse speeding ticket, Spidey-boy has a lot of emotions and really needs therapy, he also swears a lot, tiny speck of angst.

Astroboot’s Masterlist | Series Masterlist | Spiderverse Masterlist

[Previous] [TBC]

It's shocking how fast the ground approaches from a height of 72 stories. You always imagined it would take longer given the distance. In movies, the freefall is always captured in a hypnotizing slow motion, but real gravity is brutal and unforgiving.

This time, as you fall through the sky, you don’t see the New York concrete grow wider or nearer. All you see is the vast gap between you and the crystal blue sky rapidly pulling away from you. The buildings looming higher with every second. The blinding sun reflected in the thousands and thousands of glaring windows towering above.

You can't feel your heartbeat or the wind beating against your face. There should be panic. But at the sight of familiar inky-blue piercing through your view, an eerie calm takes over until a comforting numb spreads through your limbs.

Call it misguided naivety. No one should ever place this much trust with their life on a stranger they don't even know to come and save them.

But misguided or not, there's no fear in you this time around. You don't think about how you are plummeting down to your death. Not when you see him speeding after you. Diving head-first into the vast empty space as he closes the distance between you, hand outstretched, reaching for you.

His hand catches around your wrist in mid-air. It's a firm grip like he never means to let go. He reels you in until you're defying gravity, gliding up through the air to meet him until he can wrap his arms around you.

Everything decelerates. The reflection of the rows and rows of windows no longer flashing by. It's a gentle descent as the breeze flows pleasantly through your hair, and if you don't think too hard about how you can't control the direction of movement, you can almost believe you’re flying.

The landing is gentle. He sets you on your feet with such great care that it takes you a second to adjust to the feeling of firm concrete beneath your soles.

Once again, you find yourself standing face to face with the masked superhero who has saved your life more times than you can count on both hands.

You crane your neck to meet his gaze, head tilting upwards until your neck strains, and it strikes you that you've forgotten how tall he was. His head tips down, the dark outline of his masked eyes staring down at you, and it makes the hair on the nape of your neck prickle.

Say something. 

You rack your brain, trying to remember all the questions you had meticulously written down in the notepad hidden in your desk as you planned for this very moment. But they’re missing, wiped cleanly from your mind now that he's here in front of you. Your mouth parts, trying to remember how to use your vocal cords again.

Before you find it, the blue fabric recedes until it reveals his face again. You're met with cutting eyes that glow an otherworldly crimson and the bared sharp canine teeth of a predator as he growls at you. 

"What the hell were you thinking?!" 

The low rumble of his words scrapes down your spine and locks you in a fight or flight response. Except you're doing neither. Fixed in place, unable to move.

One of his hands reaches up to pull at his hair in frustration, as he starts to mumble to himself. He's tugging it so hard you think he's going to yank them out by the roots.

"I can’t believe you! Me estás matando. Casi me da un ataque cardíaco–"

You blink up at him dimly, confused until you realize that he's broken into Spanish. But he's speaking too low and too fast. You can only make out about half of it.

"–No puedo más! I am dying of stress. You're impossible! I turn away for one second…” 

One sentence flows directly into the next without stopping for a single breath, and you're surprised he doesn't go lightheaded from lack of oxygen with how long he goes on.

You raise your hand slightly, reminiscent of a gesture you used to pull in school when you wanted to get the teacher's attention to ask a question. But he doesn't notice. Doesn’t even throw a glance in your direction.

“... and you go Anna Karenina on me. I can't with you, I can't, I can't–"

You try to follow along, looking for an appropriate break in his rant to get a word in edgewise. But like the line of tourists lining up for the Statue of liberty, there doesn't seem to be an end in sight. As rude as it is, the only thing you can think of is clearing your throat, loudly, trying to draw attention to yourself, but that's soundly ignored as well.

"Me vas a sacar canas verdes–-"

One broad hand covers his face as if he's trying to scrub away the beginnings of a migraine, and he keeps going.

Listening to him makes you feel like a child on the receiving end of a scolding by an exasperated parent. Any lingering thread of fear or intimidation gives way to irritation at this man who is so subsumed by his tirade that he doesn't even seem to be aware of your presence, not three feet away from him.

"–Siempre haces esto, una y otra y otra vez–"

You don't know exactly how long he’s been going on for by now, but you know that it's long. You could even swear the shadow by your feet has shifted to the opposite end of the patch of concrete at your feet in the time he’s been talking.

"Well? Aren't you going to say anything?" he asks, apparently finally done. He stands there, arms crossed, with a condescending set to his jaw as he looks down on you.

And god, where to even start with this man? You have enough material about his difficult and avoidant behavior to make a powerpoint presentation out of it. You should block out the boardroom for three whole hours and hold a Q&A after.

How, if he had just spoken to you after you left him not one, not two, but several requests to meet with him, then things could have ended up a lot more civilized.

How, if he hadn't been hiding from you this whole time—gaslighting you— you wouldn't have had to spend over $200 on budget DIY spy crap (in this economy!) on an utterly wasted attempt to catch him. And, to add insult to injury, you’re sure you are never going to use any of that stuff ever again!

How, if he hadn't been talking non-stop and had the self-awareness to take a second to observe others, he'd have realized that you had plenty of things to say to him, if only he had paused long enough to let you.

But somehow in the face of his expectant expression, all that comes out of your mouth is, "I don't know what you want me to say."

His face falls. There's a split second of disappointment, raw and anguished, that flitters across his face. Then it's gone as quickly as it appeared, and he turns away from you. Whatever he was expecting from you, that was obviously not it.

When he speaks again, his voice has turned calm and quiet. He almost sounds resigned.

"Yeah. I don't know either." 

There's a sluggish, awkward silence that lingers on the three feet of concrete stretched between the two of you. The echo of traffic below, the cab horns and chatter swarms the space. After everything that’s happened, it all feels very anti-climatic somehow.

"Can you take me back to my apartment and we can talk? I have coffee. Cake too," you say, trying to break the silence.

"I don't drink coffee." His tone is curt, severing the olive branch you were trying to extend with a sharp snap, and your shoulders sag in defeat and disappointment. But then his face tips back in your direction and meets your eyes. The line of his mouth twitches as if he’s war with himself. 

"But I'll have some cake," he concedes. 

Had you known that a superhero was coming over for a visit, you'd probably have done a better job of cleaning up and making the place presentable.

You would have put away the heap of unfolded, wrinkly laundry that's piled up on your bed, granny panties in full sight. Would have washed the dirty dishes stacked up in your sink like a dangerous game of porcelain Jenga. Or at least cleared out the sad looking take out box where your half-eaten pizza is still resting in a greased up spot on the table.

Still, you're not sure how impressed he would be even if you had. Your studio apartment is a standard size for NYC, meaning in most other places it would be classified as a closet. With his height, he has to duck to make it through the threshold of your door and can barely stand upright without banging his head against the ceiling. It’s ironic that the window entrance is probably less hazardous for him.

You get him a plate of cake and set it on the table in front of him, delicately placing the dessert fork on the side.

"Sorry, I don't have any cookies for you today, just coffee cake."

The sight of him sitting hunched over your Ingatorp IKEA dining table is slightly comical. The table looks like a miniature doll set against his broad frame, and as he picks up the small dessert fork in his large hand, that only adds to the absurdity of the situation. He looks like he’s playing at having a tea party with a child’s play tea set. 

You sit down across from him, watching him intently, trying to gather the nerve to ask the questions you've been dying to ask since this all started. But you're hesitant and fumbling, stumbling on your words like an idiot, "Uhm, so I wanted to ask if you– if you knew why all of this is happening to–"

"No."

You frown at his interruption. "You didn't let me finish," you protest.

He leans back against his chair, waving away your protests dismissively into the air. "I didn't need you to. The answer is no. Next question."

You bite down on your lip to stave off the curse stuck in your throat, trying to force its way out. You hold it. Stemming the tide, as you focus on the task at hand.

"Who are you?"

His head tilts to the side at your question, as his hand draws up and gestures vaguely over the spider emblem of his costume draped over his chest. "Isn't it obvious?" he snarkily responds, "I'm Spiderman"

Great, he's a rude and sassy superhero. You narrow your eyes at him

"You're not the Spiderman I know of."

He doesn't respond to that. Just glares down at the cake as he pierces it with a sharp stab of the fork, making the porcelain underneath clank. Then he scoops a large spoonful and shovels it into his mouth.

God, who eats cake so angrily?

"Why did you save–" you start, but he holds up one finger, motioning for you to pause. 

He cleaves off another piece of cake and shoves it into his mouth, chewing slowly. You watch as he beats the Guinness record of slowest chewer across the table from you, before you finally get to repeat your question.

"Why do you keep saving me?"

"I'm a superhero. I save people. It's what I do."

Bright irritation pings through you at his sarcastic attitude. 

This is like playing the world's shittiest game of 20 Questions, except here the whole goal of the game is to see whose sanity cracks first.

Naively, you had thought that being able to sit down with him in person would mean you could finally start getting some answers. You hadn't been expecting the need to deploy strategic maneuvers, and you pause, taking your time before you speak. 

You need to pick a question he won't be able to evade. You think back at the footage of the nanny-cam, that time he carried you to bed. The worry when you weren't where he expected you to be. The over-familiarity that seeps out of his every action with you as if he already knows you and that the last thing you heard as you fell off the ledge was his voice calling out your name.

"How did you know my name?" you finally ask him.

His back stiffens at the question, jaw grinding down until the small muscle there flexes with irritation.

"I don't."

Liar.

"You called my name when I fell," you remind him.

This time instead of answering, he slides the now empty plate at you across the table.

"Can I have another slice?"

You frown. It's an obvious ploy to buy himself some time to avoid answering your question. But you can't deny his request either.

With a sigh, you push away your chair to bring the plate to the counter. You cut up an obscenely big slice so that he won't be able to use this as an excuse a second time.

Turning back around, you find that the gluttonous self-proclaimed Spiderman is pinching the bridge of his nose. He looks a little worse for wear, a pained expression etched into those tightly knitted brows.

"Are you okay?" you ask, concerned.

"No. I–" He breaks off, his broad palm gripping the back of the chair, and you notice a slight tremor in his fingers. "Something’s wrong." 

He pushes the chair back, trying to get to his feet, but to your surprise, he stumbles and sways. 

He seems just as surprised as you are at his newfound lack of coordination. 

"What the–" He looks down on his feet with concentrated effort. Then he takes another step. It's wobblier than the one before, his knee giving way, and his arm shoots out to grip at the edge of your table for balance.

Alarm bells start to go off in your head. You don't understand what's happening, but he's definitely right, something is wrong. A man that can gracefully scale down the Chrysler building from 72 floors down shouldn't be struggling this much just to take two steps back in your living room.

"Maybe you should sit back down," you suggest, looking up at him. There’s a slight sheen of perspiration that's settled on his forehead. The beginnings of a rosy flush tinting his cheeks. "Do you have any food allergies?"

"No. I don't. No. Super metabolism kind of cuts down on that sort of–” he’s stumbling over his words, each syllable slurred on his tongue, as he shakes his head at you. “No, no allergies. No food sensitivities of any kind except...."

He glares around wildly and his eyes land on the remaining slice of cake perched on your kitchen counter. 

"Did you put fucking coffee in that cake?!?!"

“"Yes?” You whip around, and look at the cake on your counter, not understanding the relevance of his question. “I mean... It's a coffee cake? I told you that!" 

You push aside your growing panic as you try to remember if the EpiPen stored away in your kitchen cupboard is past its expiration.

"You didn't tell me there was coffee in it!"

Is he serious?

"I said ‘coffee cake’! What else would be in there? It's in the name," you snap. 

And god, you can't believe this is what you're arguing with him about at this moment.

"Okay, yeah," he concedes testily, "but coffee cake is its own thing too! Isn’t coffee cake just… cake... that you, like... serve with coffee? It doesn't have coffee in it! Why the fuck does it have coffee in it?"

Does the man even hear himself? You're trying to figure out if you need to call an ambulance, and he is arguing with you on the technicalities of what constitutes coffee cake.

"Okay, wait, but are you dying?" you ask, trying to stay calm despite the pandemonium of panic ringing in your head. 

"No! I'm just intoxitac– intocita– intoshica– I'm just fucking drunk okay!?" he spits out.

Your brain stalls at his statement. Intoxicated!? When did he have time to drink? He seemed fine just a few minutes ago, but now he's slurring and about to topple over.

"You're drunk? How–"

"Spiders get drunk on coffee," he interrupts, and the flush on his cheek deepens to a deep alarming red. If you didn't know better, you'd almost think he was blushing.

"Okay, let's sit you down." You rush over, rounding your dining table as you reach for him.

At the sight of your extended hands, his eyes widen in alarm, He steps back from you, eyeing you like you're something dangerous.

"No. No, I'm–" he takes another step backwards, flinging himself away from your touch, but loses his footing in the process. He tilts over, hand grappling for the edge of the table as he goes, but instead of the edge he manages to take the cake plate with him on the way down.

There's a clank of shattered porcelain, followed by the loud thud of his body hitting the ground.

With the large size of him in your tiny studio apartment and the breaking of porcelain left and right, this feels like the idiom of a bull running wild in a China shop, come to life.

You reach out your hand to help him get up, but he doesn't acknowledge it, anchoring his elbow to the floor for leverage, only to wobble and fall flat against his back again with an angry curse.

Why is he so goddamned stubborn? 

You glance down at him, this gigantic man that is lying sprawled out on the floor with the gravitas of a turtle trapped on its back. He's so huge that he's eating up half of the floor space of your entire home. If he doesn’t get up, you won't be able to take two steps without accidentally stepping on him.

Shaking your head in disbelief at the ridiculousness of the situation, you hunch down on your knees beside him.

There's hesitation etched in those otherworldly crimson eyes as you come near. But as much as he's scowling at you, baring his fangs and trying to look scary, there isn't much he can do from the floor.

"Let me help you," you insist, "let's get you in bed until it wears off. I can't have you passed out on my floor like this."

He takes your outstretched hand, and you pull backwards, trying to bring him up with you. Between the two of you, you manage to get him on his feet again. Barely. 

Whoa.

You crane your head up, up, up til you meet his eyes. Yup, the man is still huge. Must be damn near 7 feet tall and heavy, and you quickly realize there's not much you can do but try to steer so that he falls in the direction of your bed.

Somehow you manage to shepherd him in the right direction, until his knees hit the edges of your bed. He lands with a dramatic thud and you hear your bed frame groan in protest. 

“Do you need anything?” you ask, but he doesn’t answer you. His broad arm drapes over his eyes, blocking you out. 

You sigh, turning on your heels to clean up the mess of coffee cake and broken plates off your floor.

You barely manage to finish sweeping up the floor before you hear soft snoring filling your home.

Knock-off Spiderman is sound asleep, his large shape curled up on your mattress, entirely still.

You settle yourself back at the dining table, eating the leftover coffee cake as you pull up a book on your phone and wait for him to wake.

This was not how you had imagined your first extended interaction would turn out.

Honestly, you can't make sense of any of your interactions with him. How he's constantly avoiding you, yet can't seem to stay away and routinely checks in on you.

How he acts overly familiar in one instance and excessively rude and put off by you the next.

Maybe you remind him of someone else... Maybe even an ex? It feels weird to speculate, but it would explain a lot of things. His belligerent attitude towards you. The way he looks at you with eyes full of resentment, even as he's saving you from certain death. That look in his eyes like he knows you, even though you've never met him.

It doesn't explain how he knows your name though.

From the bed, you can hear him stir, shifting against the mattress with a quiet groan muffled into your pillow. He's softly murmuring something that you can't quite make out, and then he turns in his sleep again, making a pained noise that makes worry squeeze tight in your chest.

Maybe letting him sleep it off wasn't the brightest idea you've had. You probably should've called for the ambulance as soon as he showed physical signs of distress.

You're not a biologist. You don't know how a hybrid spider-human’s physiology works.

What if he's not just drunk? Whoever heard of coffee making someone drunk! And how could it affect him so quickly? There was barely a minute between him stuffing his face and falling all over the place. Some quick, panicked googling confirms that coffee makes spiders a kind of drunk, but it doesn’t say if it’s outright toxic to them.

Oh fuck, what if he's dying!? Oh god, what if a superhero dies in your bed? How will you explain this to your landlord? Or the police! “I fed him coffee cake, and it killed him, officer.” Right, that’s going to go over like a lead balloon! It’ll probably look like you poisoned him. TMZ will be swarming the place. You'll be classified as a supervillain.

Setting down the book, you make your way over to sit on the edge of your bed. You lean over his sleeping form and peer down at him, checking for any signs of physical distress.

That red flush from earlier is still riding high on his cheeks, looking like the beginnings of a fever. You reach out your hand to rest it on his forehead to check his temperature.

Warm.

He stirs at the touch, turning his face and practically nuzzles into your palm. It’s almost endearing as he buries his sharp nose into your wrist.

You hold your breath, worried that exhaling would be loud enough to wake him as you gaze down on him. Up close like this, when he's not being rude, and stubborn and defensive, he's... quite attractive.

He has the kind of sculpted face that Hollywood dreams are made of, angular jaw and a prominent nose that makes him look regal. Not to mention those chiselled cheeks of his are a fucking marvel to look at. But more than that, curled up asleep in your bed, there’s a gentle softness to his features that hadn’t been noticeable when he was awake.  

Now that  he’s not frowning down at you and the line of his mouth isn’t pulled into an angry snarl, you can see that his lips are full and luscious, delicate even. His heavy brows look less intimidating now that his face has relaxed from its perpetual scowl. 

He looks... soft, somehow.

There's a spark of something heated in your veins that has you feeling flushed and warm. You have to turn your eyes, shaking your head and tutting at yourself, because you’re creeping on the drunk guy passed out on your bed, and it’s not a good look on you. 

The commotion makes him stir, his eyes blink softly open. He looks up at you, with half-lidded eyes, and it's different from how he's looked at you up until now. His gaze is still so…. soft.

"Nena," he says quietly.

Your cheeks warm at the warmth in his voice , and you gently pull your hand away from his forehead.

"Sorry, I was just checking if you were okay," you explain awkwardly as you start to back away from him, sliding your knee along the mattress to climb off the bed.

At your movement, he darts upright into a seated position and pulls you to him, clinging onto every inch of you as he buries his face to your side. 

“Don't go,” he murmurs into your neck. His voice is trembling, and you can feel the panic radiating from him as the grip he has on you tightens until it’s bruising.  

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he says, keeps repeating it. You don’t know what he’s apologizing for but the guilt and sadness in his voice tugs at something deep inside your chest. 

Nena, he said, and you realize that even though you're the one he's holding in this moment, he's not talking to you. He thinks you're someone else.

"Please don't leave me again. I-I can't–" he chokes out the words into the hollow of your throat where he's pressed his face tight into your skin. You can't help but notice the damp wetness that gathers there. "I'm trying, but I can't– I don't know how to do this without you."

The words are raw in his throat, and despite your confusion, your chest squeezes tight with a sympathetic ache at the man's obvious heartbreak.

You don't know what's going on here or who he thinks you are. The only thing you know is that you want to make him feel better. To make his hurt a little less painful. To make the consuming guilt you can hear in his voice a little bit smaller. 

"It's okay," you say. 

What the it refers to, you have no idea. But the least you can do is to give the man who has saved your life over and over, a tiny crumb of comfort.

You return his embrace, circling an arm around his shoulder, matching the tightness with which he’s holding you. Your other hand slides into his hair and he shivers at the touch, face burying deeper into your neck.

"I'll protect you,” he murmurs into your skin, “I can do better this time. Keep you safe. I promise.”

"It's okay. It’s okay. I’m already safe," you reassure him, giving him the only truth you know for sure in this moment, "You saved me."

Dedication & Credits: as always to my collaborator on this series, who helps me brainstorm, write, edit and beta-read and everything in between and over with this series. This exists because of her, and I am so grateful to her. The hours I spend shouting into her DMs and bother her on the daily since this series infected my mind. You guys don't know what I put poor @thirstworldproblemss through.

Also to @guruan who was kind enough to read through this and steer me in the right way with the spanish, but also for giving me porn that has kept my brain buzzing for days!!!

Please follow both of these insanely lovely, kind and talented people.

Author's note: the Spanish in this chapter has been left untranslated on purpose, so that it's left ambiguous whether reader speak/understand Spanish. The idea is that if you as a reader understand it, then so does the reader, and vice versa 🥰

I don’t have a tag list but please follow me on astroboots-writes and turn on notifications to be notified when I post something new!

[attractthecrows]

i think the main thing that bothers me about fanon families (because i am a picky pedant) is that for the most part, they ignore things like how said families would impact the characters and overall story. like it's one thing to add siblings and other random relations just for flavor, I can't judge there, I do it myself... but you gotta keep in mind how they slot in. who are these people related to? how are they similar? what are the common learned behaviors of the family - because they're there even if said character makes a purposeful break from said family - and how do they manifest? why and where is this person even involved in the story?

like don't get me wrong, this sort of playing around is a lot of fun. but it's fun (to me anyways) because people are so complex and there's so many facets to them, so there's all sorts of ways for their bonds with others to interact and add flavor to the plot.

[fazcinatingblog]

No YOU'RE crying at Ben talking footy on the phone with Mel

[a-couple-of-notes]

I actually think the little glimpses we get into the witches in Episode 6 are super cool, even if they are short:

Lilia sees William--an innocent boy with a tragic future--and despite clearly trying and failing to prevent tragedy over and over for centuries, her first instinct is to try and protect him with a sigil. She may scoff at witch stereotypes and seem strange and apathetic ("Death comes for us all"), but it says a lot that she wants to protect William, and reaches for this bit of crude, amateur witchcraft to do it.

No wonder Billy/William feels so close to Alice! Yes, when they went on the Road, Alice was the kindest and most willing to engage with him. But she was also the first person on the scene to try and save his life! If you look in the background of the shot, there are no other police cars; Alice is the only one who stopped. (It makes sense she couldn't make it as a cop, honestly--she's too much of a good person.)

Relatedly, I love Lorna's ballad playing in the background of Billy's discovery, further reinforcing this closer connection he feels to Alice. It's not the sacred chant version that he finds written in Latin on the dark web somewhere; it's the version meant for Alice, meant not for magical power in and of itself, but not the power to protect and reach someone. Very cool parallels.

Agatha and Jen get very similar appearances in this episode (more fodder for my continuing insistence that they're two sides of the same coin, with matching sets of defense mechanisms). They don't show up in person; rather, Billy sees them through the perceptions of others and the performances they present of themselves. He sees Jen through her makeup YouTube page (amazing, 10/10) and Agatha through all of Internet/historical rumor. Billy looks up to the "flawless" version of Jen that she curates, but we know that's false. Likewise, he hears a whole bunch of stuff about Agatha, but that's also an inextricable tangle of fact and falsehood.

It's very funny to me that Alice is the only one who stands a chance of recognizing this kid, but also is the only one who would, even if Lilia hadn't put the sigil on him and Jen had met him in person. The others have simply lived too long and become too selfish (I say that nonjudgmentally, I love my selfish witches) to remember some skinny dude from three years ago. Maybe Alice clocked Billy as soon as she saw him, was like I'm glad you survived, and just never told anyone that she arrived on the scene of his near-death car crash that same day the weird magic bubble went down. I mean, that's a strange coincidence, but it probably doesn't matter, right? Meanwhile, Agatha's over there Machiavelli-style poking Teen to figure out what his deal is.

[castelled-away]

@adhd-merlin i had some thoughts & just word-vomited everything into the tags (& I know you like Gwen so)

otp meme | [3/7] quotes